Hi, I wonder if any of you had this problem? I got my thesis reports very late... one semester of dead time, waiting for the reports which I just got. Regardless of the outcome, I feel the university had my thesis on hold for no good reason, or only because there are "too many phds"... I feel this is unfair as I am an international student, living far away, my stipend finished last year and of course because I am an "outsider" it has been tough to find a job. I wonder if any of you had the same problem and how did you handle it. I am of course, willing to do the corrections and the 6 months of extra research I want to finish this process soon and move on. Just like everybody else.

Yes, it took ages, I know. Your case is extreme. Can you not talk to someone about this?

Can you talk to your advisor about this matter?

this has been hard on you, first port of call is your supervisor. Next place is your Graduate School, there should be someone in charge of thesis submissions etc. get hold of this person, do some "stalking", find out who this person is, and get in touch--email, face to face, do something :-)

love satchi

What country are you currently doing your thesis in and did you have the external examiners lined up before submission (not your responsibility but the supervisors depending on the institution)?

In Australia it can take anywhere from 3-9 months to get reports back as they are submitted to external examiners with no viva. A workmate of mine submitted their thesis back in January, and only one of the two reports have been returned as of end of July. They are still waiting for the other report. Part of their delay was that their supervisors did not line up external examiners before submission as this was not the policy of the university they were attending.

Sometimes its also not necessarily the university administration but rather the time it takes to get the external examiner(s) to return their reports, just as it can take ages to get reviews of potential publications if one or both reviewers have delayed their reviews. So it could have been that one report was ready, but the other took ages. Or, as I stated earlier, if external examiners were not lined up before submission, then part of that time could have been searching for examiners to review your work.

In any case, it's a pretty crap situation and can be a common experience for some students.